Life and Death
by Virodeil
Summary: During the last battle of the Riders before the gate of Doru Araeba over 100 years ago, a Shade was created from its remnence. She lived up to the present day, and haunted... everyone. This might become a chaptered story eventually if I have the mood. R


A cloaked and hooded figure stood outside Aberon, challenging the hot and humid air around her. She refused to give away her identity to anyone… to mortals… to the beings she hated with a fiery passion and the lives she loved in a twisted way…

Another woman had waited there before she came, apparently. The second figure wore light sleeveless dress and nothing to conceal her from the heat of the sun, its blinding light and the eyes of any creatures roaming around the capital. She stood nervously, her hands squeezed together before her midriff.

"Where is my food this time, Trianna," the cloaked figure, approaching the other woman, demanded in a hissing voice that chilled the latter to her bones.

"An E-Empire… general… Miss…" Trianna, the other woman, stammered, taking a step back towards the stone wall of the city.

"Explain it," the cloaked figure insisted, her voice getting louder a level, disdain and bloodlust boiling in it.

Trianna's face contorted in an effort not to faint with dread or flee the deserted place. She described the target as wished then bowed her head timidly, looking submissive despite her arrogant nature.

"Only that one?" The cloaked figure sounded unsatisfied. "You only called me here for only a snack?" she barked – although her voice was not loud enough to be heard by any guards patrolling nearby. Trianna's effort of explaining more about the Empire general seized at all.

"The last time we received an information from a scout, he was surrounded by at least one hundred men," Trianna tried desperately to soothe the stranger – who had actually worked for the Varden for some time now.

"Good." The cloaked figure was mollified although her disappointment was not yet quenched. She turned away gracefully and walked off without another word, her black silk cloak billowing, tugged by a sudden gust of breeze, revealing a set of black tight leather suit underneath it.

The small fact seemed to encourage Trianna and spark her curiosity. She called over to the stranger woman, thus, "Don't you need any weapon or armour, my lady? You are going to go into the enemy's base-"

The cloaked figure turned to her, growling with indignation and contempt. "Don't dare you insult me, mortal," the stranger hissed, sounding like an enraged serpent. "Or you shall meet the same end as my other meals."

Trianna trembled, loosing her courage at once. "I-I…" she tried to explain, but that too was cut short. A cold and cruel presence, full of hunger and scornful glee, surged into her mind effortlessly, breaking through her mental barriers.

_Heed this, mortal: I am being merciful to you this time, but there is no forgiveness the next chance you let lose of your tongue_, the stranger's voice hissed loudly in the woman's mind. Trianna, muted by sheer horror, was unable to scream for help.

The stranger cackled and probed deeper into Trianna's mind, bringing pieces of memory and feelings to the surface. She could feel the torture she had caused to Trianna in that way, and she reveled in it.

She continued her way into the deepest part of the other woman's soul, into the part Trianna had never managed to reach by herself, and hissed some spells almost no one dared to utter. The spell sapped her energy, but it was not as greatly as if she had not used Trianna's own strength and life force in the process.

_Elr Akatenr Sael, you shall obey me to the end of your days._

Trianna fell to the cracked, sandy dirt and writhed.

_Elr Akatenr Sael, one day you will be mine…_

The presence retreated from Trianna's mind, and with it went also one-fourth of her strength. The stranger chortled, this time physically, gloating about the little snack she had gotten.

"Elr Akatenr Sael, remember…" she hissed and walked away without a second glance to the other woman, leaving the sight of the capital and continuing to her next destination: Aroughs.

She took no rest and nor did she need it. Her pace was brisk and light, full of purpose and energy. Soon she would have her hunger satisfied… Soon enough…

Her shining clothing and strange demeanour attracted attention, but she did not heed the town's citizens, restraining herself from putting a target on one of them just because it did not seem as satisfying as if she had a struggling victim, seeing that none of the people she had been passing by knew anything about magic in the least, unlike Trianna.

"Where is General Enner," she demanded to one of the guards standing before the town mayor's residence.

"What is your business?" the addressed man barked roughly, faling to see who he was challenging. He fell to the ground before he could realize anything, and the cloaked stranger laughed with cold, cruel satisfactory. Soon the other guards joined him in death, and it amplified her cackles a level.

How great it felt to suck lives out of people, just like sapping water from the stamp of a fresh small green plant… How wonderful it was, feeling the warmth of life leaving the bodies of the struggling pitiful creatures… sucked into her, strengthening her, satisfying her…

An image flashed before her, of a woman with dark turquoise eyes and russet hair trying desperately to bring a dead black dragon back into life with the arts of sorcery, her failure, her summoning more powerful spirits…

_Not again_, the stranger growled, strengthened by the dark spirits invested in her soul. _No more bringing people into life. They paid me nothing and here I am, an abomination. Life is not meant to be there; life is there to be vanquished…_

She stalked into the residence and directly to the chamber where she knew the general was seated in with a small war council. The memory of her past had kindled her passion to burn ever brighter.

She paused before the locked door and listened intently. When she found out that the room had been shielded from eavesdroppers by magic, she decided to make an appearance.

Unlocking the door, the cloaked figure stepped inside the room and locked back the door behind her. She was not afraid of being trapped inside; she wished to trap them all, actually…

None of the people in the room noticed her coming except a young magicion who sat directly opposite the door, the one who must have put the wards around the meeting place. She had come in in a very quiet manner, that was why,.

Upon seeing her the magicion yelped in surprise and horror, tugging the room's attention to him and – in turn – to her. They could only see a woman there, her cloak set aside to reveal an attractive body wrapped in a tight leather suit but her hood still up, concealing her true identity. Some of them gaped in awe and lust, but many of them quickly sensed the danger that was befalling upon them.

"Who are you, woman?" one of the officers, one of some people who looked towards her with blind lust, demanded eagerly. He did not falter even so the stranger's hands had curled into threatening fists at her sides, twitching at times.

_Should I eat him also? _the stranger speculated. She was nauseated by his thoughts surfacing in his visage, yet she was tempted to see how his last reaction would be when she had made him a target.

"Who are you, stranger?" the young magicion demanded in the ancient language, deciding that the stranger must be magicion to unlock the guarded locked door and thus must know about the language also.

"I am myself," replied the stranger calmly in the same language, for once hiding her glee and hunger.

"What is your identity, and where is your weapon?" the young magicion persisted, looking slightly frustrated by the lie he knew she had committed.

"Do you really wish to know?"

"Yes."

So the stranger shook back her hood and snarled in challenge, revealing her sharply-pointed teeth.

All people in the room stood in horror and fury. Some scrambled away, including the young magicion, but a few of them charged at her with their swords, thinking that the nonexistence of weapon in her person made it easier to kill her.

The stranger, her maroon eyes shining with mad exultance and ravenous excitement, held her hands before her and blocked the strikes before they even could reach her with magic. Then, after tying the attackers in the same manner, she announced, "You are brave, mortals, so I let you live for some more minutes… Now watch as I prey upon your fellows and let us see if you could be that brave when your times come."

Mad shrieks filled the room from every directions, and from outside desperate guards were banging at the guarded door, demanding entrance.

The stranger, her body and mind fully protected by magic and her own skills, stepped to the middle of the room, to the centre of the cyrcling arrangement of tables, and locked gaze with the officer who had placed a bodily lust on her. "Come, man, and let a quarter of your dream come true…" she chortled, a warm, tingling sensation running from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. She directed her magic to the poor officer and watched in cruel satisfactory as he glided forward to her unwillingly, half floating on the air as if hung by an invisible rope.

Then she caught him and pressed him to her, letting her teeth sink on the side of his neck. He emitted a gurgling cry, his blood sucked away as well as his strength, his soul…

The stranger, meanwhile, roared inwardly with mad laughter, tasting every droplet of blood she was sucking from the man's neck and the life she was taking from him. Both satisfied her bodily and mentally, and she wished for more…

Letting her bloody mouth open for a jubilant laughter, she tossed away the corpse of the officer after a time and picked at her next victim. There were only twenty five of them, but they were enough for her little feast for now.

She left afterwards, leaving the meeting room full of bloody corpses and the entire city in chaos. Her hunger was satisfied, but she needed to secure the next targets.

She went to Dras-Leona, swift but silent like a skilled hunter, feeding on 'preys' at times when she felt that she needed to replenish her strength or when she liked it. Her main goal was to reach the Ra'zac. She wondered if Ra'zac's souls would taste different than that of humans…

But there she instead met someone she did not suspect nor hope to meet.

A Rider.

A Rider with a dragon as red as Morzan's and face alike…

She fought an urge to directly target the Rider. Beside the fact that a dragon would be a tough challenge for her to defeat, a small part within her which was not tainted with evil thoughts, revenge or rage and sadness now opened a scene before her, of someone she had been close to… of someone who had led a group of renegate Riders to turn on their former friends… and they had killed her dragon, her Erylin…

"Bring me to Galbatorix, human," she commanded to the Rider right when they had stood facing each other.

"Who are you to command me, stranger?" The Rider looked indignant and highly offended.

_Proud jerk_, the stranger, who had by then cloaked herself entirely, spat. _Am I not having another business, I would have found a way to prey on you, stupid human… You think that the Riders will come back again and rule, eh? No. I will rule…_

"Who I am is of no consequence to you, Rider. Now show me where he is. I shall offer my service to him." _And get more meals._

The Rider, suspicious but having no way else to refuse her order, nodded and beckoned, "He is here in Dras-Leona; you are lucky, stranger. Follow me. He is with Marcus Tabor, the town-"

"Silence," the stranger barked sharply, her voice smooth but cold. She was always annoyed when people talked too much, and she had expected the Rider to be at least calmer.

_Silence…_ she spoke slowly to herself, tasting the word's each letter with bittersweet sense. _I was Silence once… I was… until Erylin died…_

Her rage flared again. She wished to kill the Rider. He had brought back her past to her. She hated them, his doing and her own past…

She quickened her pace, venting some of her wrathful energy into some tideous movement, pleased when she heard the Rider panting, catching up with her with an effort.

"Are you an elf?" the Rider whispered once they had stood before the gate to the town mayor's residence. His knowing gaze let the stranger know that he had had a business with an elf before; it triggered her curiosity.

"What do you know about elves, Rider?" she asked. For the first time in their meeting she looked almost polite and kind.

The Rider did not miss the tone and looked taken aback. "Only once," he replied slowly, taking great caution over his own words and the stranger's probable answers. "A long time ago."

_A long time ago_, the stranger repeated the last words, smirking in disgust. _Don't lie to me, fool. You are still young and unexperienced. How could you meet an elf a long time ago?_

Deciding that the Rider must only meet the elf in his daydreams, she retracted her interest from the subject and ordered him to bring her to Galbatorix. In the meantime she was preparing to bargain with the self-proclaimed King of Alagaësia.

The Rider brought her to a vast chamber ornately-decorated with many kinds of tapestries, sculptures and fairths. In the room sat two people, one an old man with massive body and one other thin with finely sculpted complection and roughly-tapering ears. The stranger cocked one eyebrow under her hood seeing the latter person and intensified her gaze on him, thinking that her own eyes had deceived her.

They had not. He had changed. Now he could hardly be recognized as his former self, just like her.

Seeing the stranger, the thin man ordered the Rider and the other man to go. He then stood up from his chair and engaged stares with the cloaked figure. There were only the two of them now in the room…

"Greetings, old friend," the stranger's voice broke the silence.

"Show yourself," the man ordered.

"You don't recognize me, Tor?"

"Alna? Sis- No! You mustn't be her. She-"

"No, I'm not," the stranger chuckled, but her lips shadowed by her hood were curled up into a vicious snarl. _Why did he remember her and not me?_ she thought hatefully. She despised her new self… but it was only a fleeting feeling…

"Tor."

She laughed when the man's face contorted in agony hearing the second mention of his old nickname. Her fake chuckles were replaced entirely. "Tor! Haha!" she taunted him mercilessly. "How sweet…" she sneered, her blood racing in her excitement of the wicked game she was playing.

The man prepared to use magic since his sword was not with him, but the stranger had preceeded him; she extended her mind and surged into his, battling for entrance.

"What do you want?" finally the man roared, frustrated and afraid. He could not hold her attacks much longer.

"People to kill, young Rider… People to prey…" the stranger hissed. The man knew instantly who she was.

Yet he still yelped in shock when she threw her hood back and snarled at him openly.

"Enn?" he squeaked, backing away, the surprise of the fact clogging his throat.

The stranger was beyond furious hearing the name. She strode up to him and slapped his cheek hard. "Never say that name before me again, fool. I am Ronda now as you can see," she hissed, shaking her head, getting some strands of crimson hair away from her vision.

Her hand caught his neck when her senses told her that he was preparing magic again. "Give me nice preys and I'll let you free," she whispered, her face mere centimeters from his. Her maroon eyes gleamed menacingly.

"Arya," the man choked, grappling to get free. "Nasua- Let me free! I will tell you now!" the man pleaded in the ancient language.

He broke into fits of coughing afterwards, and when he had regained his composure he demanded, "Whose side are you?"

"My own," the stranger, the female Shade, declared threateningly.

Sensing the coming danger, the man quickly explained about Arya, an elven ambassador for the Varden who held powers over the elven nation as well and Nasuada, the current leader of the Varden. "Now I want you to kill them both," he finished after a thorough and detailed explonation on both targets. He regarded the Shade warily, fear hinting in his eyes.

"I shall only prey upon the elf," the Shade decided. "I still need the female human for my own purposes." _Yes, because without the latter I would not be able to prey upon your subjects_.

The man seemed to catch the hidden meaning also, for then he forsook his restraints and snapped, "You work for the rebels too, then?"

Ronda the Shade had lost her patience. She grabbed his neck and throttled him while pushing him to his knees. Her maniac cackles afterwards filled the room, jubilant and uproarious. "Recognise your superior when you meet her, Galbatorix!" she growled between her laughter, hitting the man's head firmly with her booted foot. "I am spareing you only because you have provided me with a meal I have wished to prey upon."

she stalked away, leaving the very-recently-unconscious man, departing to seek for her meal…


End file.
